Reddit and Liked it. (Vote for me!)

I’d like more time to work on my blog but my time’s running short because of an impending trip to Melbourne! I’m in the middle of putting my Enterprise 2.0 portfolio as many of you will be or already are, and I’ve decided to write just one more short article.

Reddit is a social media platform that revolves around users submitting links (or user submitted text) and discussing them using a commenting system. Reddit also features a voting system where users can either vote up or vote down links they think are (or aren’t) worth reading and the ones that get the most votes become featured on the front page or otherwise more visible.

Sorry for such a shameless plug, but a Uni student has to do what he needs to do.

Reddit is an interesting formula. The best thing I think its that there’s no complicated rating system, it’s a yes or a no. When something asks me to rate it out of 5, unless it’s a learning experience survey or something to do with my job, I’m not interested. I’ll either vote 5 or I won’t vote.

I like that Reddit’s strengths lie in its simplicity. Simplicity encourages users to participate, and it creates a powerful tool for harnessing the collective power of its readers. The way Reddit works is just like some kind of anonymous suggestion service, “We all liked this, there’s a good chance you might too”.

It also gives users a space to elaborate past that initial rating too and that’s really important too. Sometimes you think something is really good (or bad), but you want to elaborate why so others can consider your view and it is what moves Reddit past a simple rating service, and into a true social media platform.